De Havilland
 
DH-4
Photo: Robert Deering 10/18/2012
National Museum of the USAF
Wright-Paterson AFB (FF))
Dayton, Ohio
The de Havilland Aircraft Company was a British aviation manufacturer founded in 1920 when Airco, of which Geoffrey de Havilland had been chief designer, was sold to BSA by the owner George Holt Thomas. De Havilland then set up a company under his name in September of that year at Stag Lane Aerodrome in Edgware, near London. The company later moved to Hatfield in Hertfordshire. De Havilland Aircraft Company was responsible for producing the first passenger jet and other innovative aircraft.
PHOTOS        
Military Aircraft        

DH-4

DH-82
Tiger Moth

DH-98
Mosquito

DH-100
Vampire
 
HISTORY

The
de Havilland Aircraft Company was a British aviation manufacturer founded in 1920 when Airco, of which Geoffrey de Havilland had been chief designer, was sold to BSA by the owner George Holt Thomas. De Havilland then set up a company under his name in September of that year at Stag Lane Aerodrome in Edgware, near London. The company later moved to Hatfield in Hertfordshire. De Havilland Aircraft Company was responsible for producing the first passenger jet and other innovative aircraft.

Initially, de Havilland concentrated on single and two-seat biplanes, essentially continuing the DH line of aircraft built by Airco, but powered by de Havilland's own Gipsy engines. These included the Gipsy and Tiger Moths. These aircraft set many aviation records, many piloted by de Havilland himself. Amy Johnson flew solo from England to Australia in a Gipsy Moth in 1930.

The Moth line of aircraft continued with the more refined (and enclosed) Hornet Moth and Moth Minor, the latter being a low-wing monoplane constructed of wood. One of de Havilland's trademarks was that the name of the aircraft type was painted on using a particularly elegant Roman typeface, all in capital letters. When there was a strike at the plant, the artisans who painted the name on the planes used the same typeface to make the workers' protest signs.

The DH 84 Dragon was the first aircraft purchased by Aer Lingus, who later operated the DH 86B Dragon Express and the DH 89 Dragon Rapide. De Havilland continued to produce high-performance aircraft including the high-speed twin-piston-engine DH 88 Comet mail plane, one of which became famous in its red livery as the winner of the MacRobertson Air Race from England to Australia in 1934.

The high-performance designs and wooden construction methods culminated in perhaps the most famous de Havilland aircraft—the Mosquito, constructed primarily of wood because of the shortage of aluminium during the Second World War. The company followed this with the even higher-performing Hornet, which was one of the pioneers of the use of metal-wood and metal-metal bonding techniques.

After the Second World War, de Havilland continued with leading-edge designs in both the military and civil field, but several public disasters doomed the company as an independent entity. The experimental, tailless, jet-powered de Havilland DH 108 Swallow crashed in the Thames Estuary, killing Geoffrey de Havilland Jr, son of the company's founder. A large additional aircraft factory was acquired in 1948 at Hawarden Airport at Broughton near Chester where production supplemented the Hatfield output. The de Havilland Comet was put into service in 1952 as the eagerly-anticipated first commercial jet airliner, twice as fast as previous alternatives and a source of British national pride. The Comet suffered three tragic and high-profile crashes in two years. Less well remembered, but equally disastrous, was the in-flight break up of the DH 110 prototype during the 1952 Farnborough Airshow, which also killed members of the public.

Following the structural problems of the aircraft in 1954, all remaining Comets were withdrawn from service, with de Havilland launching a major effort to build a new version that would be both larger and stronger. This one, the Comet 4, enabled the de Havilland airliner to return to the skies in 1958. By then, the United States had its Boeing 707 jetliner along with the Douglas DC-8, both of which were faster and more economical to operate. Orders for the Comet dried up.

Hawker Siddeley bought de Havilland in 1960 but kept it as a separate company until 1963. In that year it became the de Havilland Division of Hawker Siddeley Aviation and all types in production or development changed their designations from "DH' to "HS" (see Hawker Siddeley Trident and BAe 125). The famous "DH" and the de Havilland name live on, with several hundred Moths of various types and substantial numbers of many of the company's other designs still flying all over the world.

De Havilland returned to the airline world in 1962 with a three-engine jetliner, the DH 121 Trident. However, the design was modified to be smaller to fit the needs of one airline and one man: MRAF Sholto Douglas later Lord Douglas of Kirtleside, chairman of British European Airways. Other airlines found it unattractive and turned to a rival tri-jet: the Boeing 727 which was much the same size as the original DH 121. De Havilland built only 117 Tridents, while Boeing went on to sell over 1,800 727s.

De Havilland also pushed into the new field of long-range missiles, developing the liquid-fuelled Blue Streak. It did not enter military service but became the first stage of Europa, a launch vehicle for use in space flight. In flight tests, the Blue Streak performed well—but the upper stages, built in France and Germany, repeatedly failed. In 1973, the Europa programme was cancelled, with Blue Streak dying as well. The last of them wound up in the hands of a farmer who used its fuel tanks to house his chickens. 

Source: Wikipedia

AIRCRAFT      
Designed by Geoffrey de Havilland      
de Havilland Biplane No. 1      
Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.1      Also known as "de Havilland Biplane No. 2"
       
Designed by de Havilland at Airco      
Airco DH.1       2 seat pusher scout
Airco DH 2     Pusher scout
Airco DH.3     Ttwin engine bomber
Airco DH.4      Single engine bomber
Airco DH.4A     Transport
Airco DH.5      Sout
Airco DH.6     Ttrainer
Airco DH.9      Single engine bomber
Airco DH.9A      Westland development of the DH.9 with Liberty engine
Airco DH.9C      Conversion of DH.9 to passenger transport
Airco DH.9J     Re-engined DH.9 with radial engine
Airco DH.10 Amiens      Twin engine bomber
Airco DH.11 Oxford      Long range twin engine day bomber
DH.12     Unbuilt proposed derivative of DH.11
DH.14 Okapi      Single engine bomber
DH.15 Gazelle      Experimental flying test bed
Airco DH.16     Four passenger airliner similar to DH.9C
DH.18      Eight passenger airliner
       
de Havilland Company      
DH.27 Derby      Single engine long range day bomber
DH.29 Doncaster      Ten passenger airliner
DH.34      
DH.37      
DH.42 Dormouse      
DH.42A & B Dingo      
DH.48     Special re-engined DH.9
DH.50      
DH.51      
DH.52     Glider
DH.53 Humming Bird      Ultralight monoplane
DH.54 Highclere      
DH.56 Hyena      
DH.60 Moth, Cirrus Moth, Genet Moth, Gypsy Moth      
DH.60G III Moth Major      
DH.61 Giant Moth      
DH.65 Hound      
DH.66 Hercules      Three engined biplane airliner
DH.67      
DH.71 Tiger Moth     Racer
DH.72 Canberra      
DH.75 Hawk Moth      
DH.77      Lightweight fighter
DH.80 Puss Moth      
DH.81 Swallow Moth      
DH.82 Tiger Moth      Biplane trainer
DH.83 Fox Moth      
DH.84 Dragon      
DH.85 Leopard Moth      
DH.86 Express      
DH.87 Hornet Moth      
DH.88 Comet      Racer
DH.89 Dragon Rapide      
DH.90 Dragonfly      
DH.91 Albatross     Four engined airliner
DH.92 Dolphin      
DH.93 Don      
DH.94 Moth Minor      Monoplane trainer
DH.95 Flamingo      Twin-engined airliner
DH.98 Mosquito & Sea Mosquito     A highly successful wooden fighter-bomber of WWII
DH.100 Vampire & Sea Vampire  1945    
DH.103 Hornet & Sea Hornet   Ttwin-engined fighter
DH.104 Dove & Devon      Twin-engined airliner
DH.106 Comet 1949   World's first commercial jetliner
DH.108 Swallow  1946   Expermental aircrarft
DH.110 Sea Vixen  1951    
DH.112 Venom & Sea Venom 1952    
DH.113 & DH.115     Vampire two seaters
DH.114 Heron     Four engined airliner
DH.121 Trident later the HS.121 Trident      
DH.125 later the HS.125      
DH.146 later the BAe.146